Join the Chicago Medical School BRI chapter for a lunch lecture with David A. Ansell, MD, MPH. Dr. Ansell draws upon his considerable experience in urban healthcare to illustrate the ways in which US health policy affects the relationship healthcare providers have with their patients. His talk will hopefully open the eyes of future healthcare providers to the problems facing our health system today, and provide them a base from which they can find their own voice in addressing those issues as their careers progress.
From Dr. Ansell’s bio: Dr. David Ansell is an Internal Medicine physician and the Chief Medical Officer at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. His work with others on the problem of patient dumping brought national attention to this issue and resulted in landmark national legislation to end this practice. In 1995, Dr. Ansell moved to Chicago’s Sinai Health System, the State of Illinois’ largest private provider of indigent care and one of the foremost safety-net health systems in the U.S., as the Chairperson of Internal Medicine. At Sinai, he was responsible for the creation of the Sinai Urban Health Institute, which has become one of the nation’s leading centers for research and interventions to understand and eliminate health inequities.
This event takes place in the CENTRAL TIME ZONE. Please park in the North Parking Lot and enter at the North Auditorium Entrance. We will be serving lunch refreshments.
POST-EVENT SUMMARY: Thirty-one students attended this fascinating and inspiring presentation. Dr. Ansell opened his talk by speaking at length about his personal experience as a resident of Cook County Hospital in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He encountered nearly unfathomable (by today’s standards) levels of patient neglect and racial and socioeconomic disparity, which helped to shape his career and caused him to become a champion for THE undeserved and neglected populations in Chicago.
Dr. Ansell shared his hope that future healthcare providers will not rest and simply accept the status quo, but will make activism for patient rights a core part of their future practice. He urged us to keep our eyes and our hearts open and to never forget that medicine is about treating people – no matter their background, race, affluence, or any other societal category. He reminded us that it is our duty to seek alternatives to the current healthcare model that will bring more equitable care, more affordable care, and better quality care to people of all walks of life. To simply work as a cog in the machine without thought to the why and the how of our patient care efforts is unconscionable.
“I thought Dr. Ansell’s talk exceeded expectations. I was initially worried because Dr. Ansell is a prominent voice for a national health program and I anticipated that there could be some commentary that would be at odds with the stated mission of BRI. However, Dr. Ansell did not make his opinion regarding how to address the issues we discussed a prominent part of his presentation; in fact, his stance on the future of healthcare policy only came out during the question and discussion portion of the event. He spent much more time turning the narrative toward what we as individuals could begin to do now to address disparity and inequity, rather than opining on our country’s future direction in healthcare.” ~Theodore Peterson, BRI-Chicago Medical School at RFUMS chapter president
TESTIMONIALS from Chicago Medical School at RFUMS:
“I felt like [Dr. Ansell is] speaking directly to and about my family and me.”
“I often feel discouraged about our healthcare system, but [Dr. Ansell’s] talk was uplifting and encouraging.”
“It is so nice to know that there are physicians out there who make activism and patients’ rights a central part of their practice.”